What is the Gene Technology Report?

Do gene technologies offer great opportunities to advance medicine, develop higher-yielding crops and boost economic growth? Or are incalculable risks for our health, the environment and social cohesion hidden within them? In recent decades, gene technologies – more than any others – have reignited the old controversy over whether technological progress should be regarded as a blessing or a curse. The reasons for this are as varied as the research fields and areas of application of the gene technologies themselves – and the spheres of life affected by them.

For example, the potentially deep impact of genome surgery opens up great opportunities, but also involves great risks: genetic engineering can directly modify the genetic material of all living organisms, from microorganisms, plants and animals to humans themselves. With the development of ever more precise and cost-effective genetic scissors such as CRISPR/Cas9, the boundaries of what is achievable are being pushed back at a breath-taking pace. By means of germline interventions, genetic engineering is currently not only able to alter the genetic make-up of an individual person but also that of future generations. In this way, gene technologies raise absolutely fundamental questions about the future of humanity, our self-image and our relationship with nature, not least with our own nature as individuals. How far can, may, should or must research into gene technologies and their applications go? How can risks and opportunities, societal impacts and ethical problems be assessed in a differentiated manner that is as unbiased as possible? The rapid developments in genetic engineering research and its application, and the societal change they entail, require a public discourse and democratic decision-making processes, and so present great challenges for science communication.

Against this background, and in view of the sometimes highly polarised public debates, the main concern of the IRG Gene Technology Report at the BBAW is to pave the way for an unbiased and, as far as possible, open-ended societal discourse on gene technologies in Germany. To this end, the research group composed of renowned researchers in the fields of medicine, natural sciences, humanities and social sciences serves as a long-term monitoring committee that thoroughly examines the various applications of gene technologies and keeps an eye on their developments. In addition to presenting in detail the current international scientific position and the legal framework for the use of gene technologies, particularly in Germany, the IRG also explains the diverse fields of application of gene technologies in a way that is generally understandable and comments on issues from different critical perspectives. The research group considers the natural scientific, medical, economic and ecological aspects of individual genetic engineering applications but also ethical, political and social questions. In addition, the IRG Gene Technology Report offers orientation to decision-makers in politics and society by making concrete recommendations for action.

The Gene Technology Report

Every three to five years, the research group publishes a comprehensive Gene Technology Report – and owes its name to the latter. The report aims to provide a broad, summarising overview of the complex field of genetic engineering. The latest edition of the Gene Technology Report, its fourth, was published in 2018. Furthermore, in order to explore individual topics in greater depth and to be able to react quickly to current developments in research and society, we regularly publish volumes on special topics, statements on issues of current concern and booklets, each of which focuses on a specific topic from the broad spectrum of gene technologies.

Topics covered in recent years include single-cell analysis (2019), stem cell research (2006 and 2018), epigenetics (2017) and genome surgery (2015). The IRG has also published material on agricultural biotechnology (2007 and 2013), synthetic biology (2012), gene therapy (2011) and genetic diagnosis (2007).

With the publication of our reports, special volumes and booklets, we want to reach out to the interested public as well as to scientists, NGOs, professional and trade associations, policy-makers and other interest groups, and to initiate a dialogue among these different players.

An important topic of the future: organoids

Currently, we are working on a volume concerning the research area of organoids. Organoids are three-dimensional structures consisting of different cell types and resembling in form and function certain organs. Intestinal organoids, brain organoids or liver organoids have already been created. Organoids research promises fundamentally new knowledge about the origin of organs and diseases, as well as insights for the field of developmental biology. In addition, new applications in the field of regenerative medicine could in the future enable cell, tissue and perhaps even organ replacement. Organoids also open up new possibilities for drug development and personalised medicine: these structures can be used, for example, in the Petri dish to anticipate the reactions of patients to drugs using organoids developed from their own cells. Researchers also hope that organoids will be able to contribute to the reduction of animal experiments by enabling research into the effects and side effects of new drugs.

Communicating and discussing knowledge

We give lectures both at schools and at specialist conferences, and we organise events for various target groups, for instance in the form of academic lectures, symposia, workshops for interest groups, and teacher training. By means of our diverse event formats, we wish to convey knowledge about gene technologies to a broad public and initiate the process of discussion in society as a whole.

In producing our publications, including when we are working together with external experts and with organisations and institutions relevant to the respective topics, the IRG has made it a priority to present the various gene technologies in a measurable and representative form, not only by means of qualitative content analyses but also through quantitative analyses. For this purpose, we use articles from selected German newspapers and magazines with a large readership (Die ZEIT, SZ, FAZ and Der Spiegel), website articles and public statements on issues of current concern to identify which topics are being widely covered in the media and in other areas in connection with a specific genetic engineering application. Based on our analysis, we identify problem areas. The latter comprise topics and issues that are of interest to the public, including some which are the subject of controversial discussion. We relate the problem areas to four guiding dimensions: science, economics, social affairs and ethics. In doing so, we make it clear that technological developments and innovations may be viewed from many different perspectives. Examples of problem areas are the question of Germany as a research location or the patenting of scientific results.

The diagram shows an example of a problem area for the topic of stem cell research in Germany. As the next step, measurable data (indicators) is collected for the identified problem areas. One possible indicator for the problem area “Germany as a research location” is, for example, the number of specialist publications on a respective topic in which the lead author is German. By continuously collecting this data, it is possible to illustrate graphically how a problem area develops in Germany over a certain period of time and, in part, to highlight it by means of international comparisons.